I am experienced as a magazine journalist and book writer, but new to the TV industry. I am finding my feet. I have an archive of personal letters, photos and documents from the 30’s and 40’s about a British family in Shanghai, who experienced the high life, two wars between the China and Japan, lived under occupation by Japan, internment, and then finally, life in Shanghai after liberation. Think of this as being similar to Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, except what I want to do is produce something that actually happened, as opposed to Ballard’s story which veers significantly from reality.
My initial intention was to write a book to be published sometime next year. I want to catch the wave of interest in Britain’s 100 year involvement in China as people focus on the Beijing Olympics. However, because of the nature of this archive and the events covered, I think it would work well as a documentary.
I would be grateful for any advice about approaching production companies and recommendations of who to approach.

Hi Richard
You have an interesting idea for a ‘real documentary’ here, especially in view of the forhcoming olympics, the rise of China, and an historical account of your familiy’s past. It can imagine it would make a good doc.in the style of using actors and a period looking programme.
Have you collated ideas for this yet, made some sort of chronological history as yet? This would need to be structured and would take a production company some time to arrange this info and history into some sort of working schedule.
UKTV History would be my first port of call, and also BBC3 and 4 would be the high brow production houses that may be interested.
I have lists and lists of all the independent production houses in London via Kemps.
Contact me via my regular email and i’ll send you these, and some advice on how to approach them.
mail me here [email protected] and i’ll see what i can do.
Phill Gee

Hi Richard,
If you wish to call me, I specialise in the physical production aspect, be it TV submission, DVD or on-line media etc.
With regard to the marketing aspect, this requires it’s own specialist experience and although I am happy to give general tips, it is not a service I provide.
Feel free to contact me.
(Please note I will be unavalaible for calls tomorrow 5/6/07)
Best wishes.
David Russell Smith
Producer
Aztec Video & Multimedia
Tel 01525-715707
Web site http://www.aztecvideo.co.uk